BT 2011 Annual Report Download - page 36

33BT GROUP PLC ANNUAL REPORT & FORM 20-F 2011
BUSINESS REVIEW OUR LINES OF BUSINESS
BUSINESS REVIEW
Business overview
Openreach is responsible for the ‘last mile’ of the UK access
network – the copper wires and fibre connecting homes and
businesses to their local telephone exchange via fixed-line local and
backhaul connections. Openreach connects 5,600 exchange areas
through approximately 120m kilometres of copper wire. All
Openreach customers – currently approximately 490 CPs, including
other BT lines of business – are offered fair, equal and open access
to its networks. We have nearly 19,000 field engineers who work
on behalf of all CPs, enabling them to provide their customers with
a range of services from analogue telephone lines to complex
networked IT services.
Products and services
Wholesale line rental
Wholesale line rental (WLR) enables CPs to offer telephony services
with their own brand and pricing structure over BT’s network.
Local loop unbundling
LLU enables CPs to use the lines connecting BT exchanges to end
users’ premises, and to install their own equipment in those
exchanges.
Ethernet
Openreach’s Ethernet products offer CPs a wide choice of high
bandwidth circuits to build or extend their customers’ data
networks.
Fibre-based broadband
Openreach plans to make fibre-based services available to 10m UK
premises by 2012 and to two thirds of premises by the end of
2015, offering speeds of up to 100Mbps. Super-fast fibre access is
provided by our Generic Ethernet Access product which comes in
two types: FTTC offering download speeds of up to 40Mbps and
upload speeds of up to 15Mbps; and FTTP offering download
speeds of up to 100Mbps and upload speeds of up to 30Mbps.
There are a number of CPs currently offering or trialling FTTC and
FTTP.
At 31 March 2011 Openreach had identified 12 trial sites for its
FTTP product and already passed over 12,000 UK premises.
Operating review
2011 was an extremely busy year for Openreach with high levels of
demand across our products. At 31 March 2011 Openreach was
providing 16.9m WLR lines to other BT lines of business, and 6.2m
to other CPs.
By the end of the year, 89% of UK premises were served by an
unbundled exchange and there were 15.7m unbundled lines in the
UK, up 6.5% on the previous year. Of these, 8.1m were for other BT
lines of business to support broadband services and 7.6m were for
other CPs. Thirty CPs are providing unbundled services, and
Openreach is fulfilling more than 100,000 LLU orders a week.
This increase in LLU uptake was stimulated by further demand in
the broadband market and drove overall engineering provision
visits up over 25% year-on-year. We completed over 65,000
Broadband Boost visits – where engineers visit homes to improve
broadband services.
Openreach
£4,930m
Revenue
£2,132m
EBITDA
During the year we continued to roll out our
super-fast broadband at scale and are on track
to pass 5m homes by spring 2011. For the first
time since we were formed, we have seen
growth in our copper line base.
11,000
Growth in copper line base in 2011
62%
Increase in Ethernet connections
WLR
LLU
Private circuits
Ethernet
Other
Openreach revenue by product
12%
6%
56%
22%
4%
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